Last night’s Academy Awards (aka The Oscars) fail wasn’t just an error because of a duplicated envelope, personally I think it was the fault of poor design. No different from the infamous “Steve Harvey moment”.

As we all watched Warren Beatty’s hesitation to announce the winner of ‘Best Picture’ at the 89th Academy Awards, you knew something was definitely off. Faye Dunaway seemed to have been completely oblivious, no fault of her own since part of the problem was being handed the wrong envelope. However, the real problem was ‘bad design’.

Good design would’ve eliminated that colossal fiasco that was the presentation for ‘Best Picture’. All it needed was a better layout and simple adjustments in specific font size for the award category (Best Picture/Best Actress) and film title (Moonlight/La La Land).

Here’s a closeup of the design layout used versus my interpretations of how the cards should’ve been done.

The actual design used at the Academy Awards showing the real winner, Moonlight

Good design should facilitate clear communication. The reader should be emboldened to read without second-guessing what’s presented before them.

For your consideration, my design alternative that uses the same information with just slight tweaks in the layout and font size, where applicable.

Notice the order in which the information is displayed from top to bottom

Increase the font sizes for the most important information and change around the layout.